Another alleged al-Qaeda terrorist held, third arrest in two days

In another breakthrough, the Special Cell has made a third arrest related to al-Qaeda's terror network in the subcontinent

Al-Qaeda terrorist Jafar Masood was arrested by the special cell in Sambal on Wednesday night. This is the third arrest in 2 days.

Masood is believed to be the finance manager of AQIS. He was trained in Pakistan in the year 1999.

The special cell arrested 2 other al-Qaeda operatives Asif and Mohammad Abdul Rehman from Delhi and Cuttack on Wednesday. While Asif was allegedly present at the grand shura of al-Qaeda in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region when the terror group's Indian subcontinent wing was established, Mohammad Rehman is suspected to have terror links in Saudi, Dubai and London.

Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri was reportedly present at the grand shura. Asif returned to India to develop and establish the terror groups.

Asif's interrogation helped investigators to establish the identity of Maulana Asim Umar, the self proclaimed emir of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). Umar emigrated from India in 1995 and joined terror group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.

In September 2014 Ayaman al-Zawarhi established AQIS and put out his plans on social media. Asif para dubbed Zawarhi's speech in Hindi and Urdu. His interrogation also revealed that he was motivated to join the group through social media. A few other youngsters from his village had fled to Pakistan and joined terror outfits.

In 2012 he got in touch with Umar who convinced him to come to Pakistan. Asif got two more men with him and the finance was arranged by Umar. They applied for visa to do ziyarat at Ayatollah Khomaini's graveyard in Iran.

On June 23, 2013 they went from New Delhi to Tehran and through contacts they travelled to the interiors of Iran, Zahedan and then to Sarwan on Iran-Pakistan border. From there they reached Quetta in Pakistan.

Asif was also trained in weapons along with two men who had fled with him. During his interrogation he also claimed that a US drone strike killed Teherik-e-Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsood.

Sometime in September 2014, Umar alias Sanaul told him that Zawarhi's son-in-law along with the grand council of al-Qaeda will be meeting to anoint an emir of newly found AQIS.

Few days later surprisingly Indian Mujahideen founder chief Raiz Bhatkal along with Bada Sajid, another IM fugitive who was recently killed in Syria, came to pay respect to the AQIS chief.

The two men, who came with Asif, are still in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Asif left for India through the same route but was caught by Iranian authorities. But al-Qaeda contacts helped him to escape. He went to Turkey where he met members of Uighur al-Qaeda group.

Since his visa had long expired, he told the Indian Embassy that he lost his passport and got an emergency certificate to reach India.